@HorridThe Cave-InnAfter they’d gotten themselves settled in, washed, and put in some proper clothes, Team Thunderstorm found themselves sitting on comfortable wooden beds within one of the inn’s rooms. It was far from time to sleep, but it felt incredibly nice to be sitting on a proper bed.
“So,” Chumi said. It was obvious, what he was going to ask.
“What happened?”
“You saw me run back to the waterfall pool, so I’ll omit the part before that. Sorry about abandoning you there, by the way,” she said. Chumi nodded.
“It’s fine. You looked scared out of your mind, anyway. Besides, if you had escaped with me, we’d both be cursed and probably neither of us would be here now,” he said. Good. She’d been feeling kinda guilty about that.
“Okay, well, anyway, after I escaped into the pool, I sank deeper and deeper until it was so dark I fell asleep without noticing,” Piper continued, “When I woke up, I was in some sort of stone pipe, beneath the ground. When I tried to escape, something weird happened, my magic went haywire, and the pope exploded. I got shot into the forest on a giant geyser as a result,”
“Then what?” Chumi asked.
“I woke up in the cave I had you go to bed in. Theresa and the lizard rescued me from the water or something, so we get introduced and everything,” Piper said, “After that, I went outside and used a roll-call orb, and you know what happened from there,” she finished.
She laid back onto the bed. All in all, while the exploration certainly hadn’t gone as planned so far, they were still in reasonably good shape. Sure, one of the members was now subject to an ancient curse of some variety which would “prevent” Chumi from spilling the beans on what was within the Blanklands, which, as ancient curses usually go, probably meant fiery death, but they still had one half the team able to report findings back. There was that going for them. They also still had most of their supplies, a good deal more raw orbs than they’d left with, and some key information about how the place worked. Speaking of keys...
“Hey, Chumi,” she said, sitting back up and putting her hand in her hat, removing the keys that Julian had given her earlier, “Could you take a look at these?”
Chumi accepted the keys, looking them over, turning them, tapping them with a silly looking little device that hadn’t been there moments ago. After a minute or so, he spoke.
“It’s a key,” He said. Piper glared at him. “It’s a magical key of some sort. It’s got a... really
weird enchantment on it, which uses a bunch of eldritch variables that aren’t present anywhere else on the runes. It’s like someone deliberately put half an enchantment on this. So far as I can tell, though, it’ll react to something that gives it all these variables, then tell that something to do something. With more nonsense variables. Beyond that, I can’t tell,”
“So it’s... A key. To a magical door,” Piper said, flatly.
“Looks like it. A door or something else entirely. Hell, it could be a key to a magical doomsday device, and I wouldn’t be able to tell,” Chumi said.
“I’ll make sure to ask Julian what exactly it does if I get the chance,” Piper said. Hopefully it was, in fact, a perfectly normal key to a perfectly normal door. Just, well, magical. Speaking of magic, she should probably go over her idea to break the curse the continent is on with Chumi.
“So, um, Chumi,” she started, staring at the stone ceiling, “What do you think we should do about the whole curse thing?”
“I really don’t think we should let you get cursed willingly,” he said instantly. Piper turned her head in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to be that decisive about it.
“Why?” Piper asked. She obviously had no intention of going along with it herself, but if he answered that quickly, she’d best listen to it.
“Curses are bad, for one, no matter how well-intentioned. Secondly, though, the way you reacted to the Vigils was, well, terrifying,” he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that scared before. There were only two there, and from what I understand, there’s going to be a lot more if we go to the boss. We can fight one big monster, but I can’t fight you, not when you’re terrified out of your mind and attacking everything in sight with icicle steam spears,”
Well. She hadn’t thought of that one, somehow. She really should have been expecting it, but somehow the idea that the vigils would be as
scary as the vigils were had completely dropped from her mind.
She laid back onto the bed, spreading herself over as much of it as she could, staring at the ceiling. There really weren’t any other options here, were there? Despite what Julian had said, the only thing they could do was to flee, and eventually face this Fishmonster. Either defeat it, or be cursed. If they managed to beat it, what then? Would they just send more? She didn’t know how far the Vigils’ senses of duty and self-preservation would go when it came to them losing their own lives.
She doubted they would listen to her when she said she did genuinely plan to break this curse that threatened their very being. After all, people tended to be fearful of things that could disrupt their ways of life, and she doubted squid monster men were any different. Would they accept the word of someone claiming to want to save them, or just curse them for the possibility of ruining everything? She had to go over this with Chumi. Perhaps he had some insight.
“Chumi, t-thank you for thinking of that. I didn’t even consider how terrifying that would be. I, um, wasn’t actually thinking of doing that anyway, but for a different reason,” she said, stuttering slightly.
“I gave it some thinking after what Julian said, and I decided that the only way that I can make everything work out is to, um, completely abolish the curse that will kill the inhabitants of the continent if they become known,”
Chumi stared at her. Piper felt a little bit shameful for a moment. It really did sound ridiculous, coming out of her mouth.
“I can’t argue with you there. We can’t make history by discovering stuff, only for it to be gone when others go to see it,” he said, “There’s also the ethical effects of it all, I guess. I wouldn’t want Julian to disappear, I like him,”
“Me too,”
“How do you think we should start?” he said. Piper looked at him. He had a massive grin on his face.
“I feel like the best way to do that is to find someone who knows. The Vigils probably have a key to the puzzle, but we need to know what the puzzle is supposed to look like first,” she said.
“Let’s ask Julian if there’s someone who knows even more about the continent’s formation and curse than he does, when we’re ready to leave,” Chumi said. Piper nodded vigorously.
Yaxato WoodlandsEnrique most certainly wasn’t lost. The path thinned here, but it was still certainly visible. It certainly hadn’t gotten muddled with what looked like a rhinoceros charging through several miles back. He certainly wasn’t going to starve if he couldn’t find his way to Rockvale.
Suddenly, a man’s voice erupted from the thick forest to his left. A little red fox shot past him, looking terrified. Was that another man, lost and hunting for food? Company would be excellent, especially if they had food to spare. It wasn’t as though Enrique had any with him.
Searching in the general direction of the noise revealed a tall, bald man who looked to be scratching his buttocks with the butt of a pistol. While he would normally find himself laughing at such a sight, the fact that he was wiping his own arse with a firearm made Enrique a little wary at the idea of insulting him. Perhaps, then, he would instead play the role of a kindly travelling man. Two of those things were true, at least. He took a breath, and revealed himself.
The man didn’t actually notice him at that, as he was too busy inspecting his own behind. With a pistol. Enrique took it upon himself to begin the introductions.
“Hello, hello,” he spoke, “What might a fine man such as yourself be doing so deep within the Yaxato Woods?”
He hoped the formality wouldn’t be necessary, but you never could tell just what level of courtesy a random person would demand. He was well dressed, though sopping wet and possibly quite as lost as Enrique was.